Protecting Our Communities

Tackling Burglary and cross border crime in Melton Mowbray

The front page about the rise in burglaries a couple of weeks ago was not one I want to see but sadly for many victims this has been a reality here in Melton. If you watched the local news on Thursday night you will have seen the Assistant Chief Constable Roger Bannister talking about the rise in burglaries over Nottingham, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.

My staff have been working hard to tackle these and we are slowly getting some success and I will be reporting on individuals who have been charged and remanded into custody to await trail once I am able which is after conviction.

At the start of April the Safer Melton Partnership which consists of a number of different agencies set about an ambitious project centred around burglary. The project is Communities Against Crime led by Paul Appleby who can be followed on twitter and face book @Melton_CCC and this is the same on Facebook. This will see police staff, volunteers, council staff and Neighbourhood Watch working together to visit as many people as possible on a street or a village that has suffered a burglary. We are looking to provide advice around a number of crime prevention strands and will be helping secure sheds, fit tamper proof number plate screws to cars, offer discounted items such as locks etc and provide an enhanced crime prevention input around the house; we are looking to help you register your valuables in the National Property register and look to raise the profile of the Neighbourhood Watch to list some of the aims.

This will hopefully lead to crime reductions but more importantly in a reduction in the number of victims of these crimes. One good example of a recent success is where a neighbour had the foresight to spot some males acting suspiciously and photographed their car registration. Their hunch was right as a break in followed but their foresight enabled us to make arrests of people from Leicester City.

I would still appeal to the public to secure their property, not leave downstairs windows open and to be vigilant about people operating in their neighbourhood and give us a call if you think people are engaged in crime on 101 or if happening at the time 999. Any community intelligence can be shared with local staff but if you are worried about doing this then please phone Crimestoppers on 0800 555111

On a separate but slightly related note we continue to tackle rural crime and target those criminals who travel from other areas to commit crime in Melton Borough. On Thursday 17th July we joined forces with Nottingham Police, British Transport Police, HMRC, Environment agency, Rushcliffe Council , Smartwater and VOSA in a day of action centred around metal theft. This saw everyone working together to achieve the best outcomes where a total of 17 vehicles were stopped and checked. One was seized for using red diesel and an expired vehicle excise licence. One had an immediate prohibition notice served as un-roadworthy and was collected via lorry and taken from the site for repairs. One male was reported for scrap collecting without the correct permits. Numerous vehicles were issued rectification notices for repairs and we gained some valuable intelligence on travelling criminals